Fixed path: Power protection prevents production interruptions

Hwashin, located in Chennai, India, manufactures sheet metal parts such as floors, trunk lids, brake pedals and cowl bars for Hyundai cars. Because the plant is dusty, the company experienced frequent breakdowns of its servo stabilizers, burnouts of robot controller cards and stoppages of welding lines resulting in production loss. After installing voltage-regulated power (VRP) supplies, the company has protected itself against power fluctuations and downtime.

The problem was especially prevalent during power outages when backup power supplied by a diesel gas generator fluctuated. The company had been using servo stabilizers to protect equipment, but still experienced production interruptions. The new VRP system uses pulse-width modulation to provide continuous, seamless correction.

“The welding lines powered by servo stabilizers incurred an average annual expense of $34,000 on burnt cards of robot controllers,” said Rajakumar Vaithiyanathasamy, Hwashin’s Plant-1 senior engineer of projects, who first reviewed a trial unit on one of its robot controllers. “There is no burnt card in the welding lines powered by VRP. We have benefitted enormously by installing the VRPs to power the robot controllers.”

After noting the improvement, they rolled out the VRP units throughout the plant. Since 2013, 139 VRPs, a mix of 6 kVA and 10 kVA, have been installed in its two plants. Currently in Plant-1, 101 VRPs are powering 101 robot controllers, and this plant still has an additional 99 servo stabilizers powering 99 robots.

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